


the stillness of the memory (what you had, what you lost)

by queenofthestarrrs



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, No Smut, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Past Sokka/Yue (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar)-centric, Sokka Is Suyin Beifong's Parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthestarrrs/pseuds/queenofthestarrrs
Summary: He loves her, loves all of them, too much to tell Suyin the truth, but that doesn't mean the ghosts of the past and the lies of the present don't haunt him.
Relationships: Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Kya & Sokka (Avatar), Lin Beifong & Suyin Beifong & Toph Beifong, Suyin Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong/Sokka
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	the stillness of the memory (what you had, what you lost)

The night he finds out he is going to be a father, he dreams about his mother.

He dreams that he is ten years old, peering into a pond. The pond is covered in a thick, unforgiving, and almost mirror-like sheet of solid ice. As he stares into the ice, it is not his own reflection that stares back at him. Instead, his mother, or at least what he remembers of her, what he can construct of her, stares back at him. Her blue eyes are soft, and they’re brimming with tears almost as bright and translucent as the ice. 

She has Katara’s open and soft expression. She had his own sharp chin and angular face. The bags under her eyes weren’t something he remembered from his own childhood, but they were ones he often recognized in his own face and the face of his sister. In fact, he recognized them on nearly everyone he knew. The war was over, but the toll had not ended. Or maybe that was just the burden of being an adult, despite being nearly forty, Sokka still wasn’t entirely sure. 

He touches one tiny gloved hand to the edge, and her bare hand was raised to match it. He tilts his head left and right, and she matches his movements. The two of them blink as they stare at one another. He wonders which of her features his own child will have. He searched his mother’s face for the features of his niece and nephews. 

“Mom,” he breathes. Kya’s face moves in tandem with his own, but she does not actually speak. He shutters. “What am I supposed to do?”

His mother smiles softly in response. Unwillingly, Sokka feels his own mouth curl against his will. He didn’t feel joy. He felt fear and inadequacy and a sense of loss he couldn’t quite name.  
  
Behind the ghostly apparition of his mother, a warm light as bright as firelight glows behind her. There is no fear in his mother’s eyes, only peace.  
  
And for the first time in years, he hears her voice. It is as crystal clear as if she was there standing next to him, and Sokka just knows in his bones that it is her voice.  
  
“Oh Sokka,” his mother says softly. “You already know what to do.”

When he wakes, the familiar hum of Republic City, an empty bed, and a cool layer of sweat that uncomfortably clings to his skin is there to greet him. 

  
  


-

They fall into an easy pattern. So easy that he nearly questions why they didn’t start this arrangement earlier in their lives when they were a little less jaded and a little less worse for wear. 

Sokka travels, more than he would like sometimes. He leaves for months at a time, to travel back home and help out his father, to meet with other diplomats, to try to figure out what the future is supposed to hold. Every time, he leaves his friends and family behind in Republic City, and he returns to bonafide strangers. He doesn’t recognize the gray streak in his sister’s hair. He doesn’t recognize the stress on Aang and Toph’s faces. He leaves Tenzin and Lin in the winter as toddlers and returns to a fully realized little boy and girl. 

He’s a little drunk the first time he kisses her, but he wouldn’t blame it on the alcohol. He would blame it on the fact that he has nothing else to lose. He stared death in the eyes too many times to care about what the world would think. Instead, he thinks about how long he had wanted to do this.  
  
She melts into his touch, and he smirks - knowing she wanted this too. 

If Toph minds the arrangement, she never says anything about it. Instead, when they lay in his bed, they talk about anything else other than their feelings. They debate the local politics hotly. Toph regales him with stories of the police beat, who got away, and who she wishes would have gotten a second chance. He tells her about the stories and fairytales he remembered as he grew up.  
  
“You know, I don’t want a relationship,” Toph says to him quietly one night as she reaches over his bare chest and holds up the lighter to his hand-rolled tobacco cigarette. He doesn’t smoke normally, outside of the traditional ceremonies where it’s practically required of him. But Toph is offering and Lin is gone for the night, off with Katara and Aang for an extended playdate, and he’s curious to see where this will go. The swell of her breast is warmly and soft and weighty against him. 

He takes a long inhale and purses his lips. Carefully, he blows out a few rings of smoke.  
  
“You know,” he weighs the words in his mouth, “I’m not Kanto.”  
  
Toph takes an inhale of her own and slowly blows out a stream of smoke. She looks practiced enough for Sokka to tell she’s done this often, and without hesitation, he intrinsically worries about her health.   
  
“Never said you were, Sokka.”  
  
He winces. She only calls him by his first name when she’s being serious, and this was never supposed to be serious. 

“I just think that would make things complicated.” Toph rearranges herself to lay across his chest, her unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling. She drops her ashes to the floor where they smolder against the ground. “And I don’t think I could do anything complicated now.”  
  


He snakes his arm around her waist and takes another puff of his own cigarette. He coughs and pretends like he did it on purpose. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. It didn’t make it complicated when Aang and Katara got married.”

“They were kids.” Toph shakes her head vigorously. Her long black hair cascades over both of them. It’s knotted and sweaty, but Sokka doesn’t mind. “I am the Chief of Police, and you’re the head of the Council, the same council I answer to. I have a daughter who is not your biological child. You’re going to be the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and I am not going to stop doing what I do, Sokka. You know it’s not the same.”

“We could make it work. You know that I love Lin. And I would never ask you to step away from your duties.” Sokka is blabbering, and he’s not entirely sure where it’s coming from. Panic is bubbling in his chest. 

Toph exhales long and tiredly and defeated. “And I would never ask you to abandon your people. But it’s not even that. You know what I do. There’s always a chance I might not make it back home. I couldn’t put you through that, not again.”  
  
Sokka squeezes his eyes shut until he sees stars. In his mind’s eye, he can see Suki and Yue and his mother. All of the women he loved and lost. He knows his own heart is calloused and bruised and tender. He knows he could not lose another love in his life.  
  
“Not calling it a relationship wouldn’t make it hurt any less if I lost you.” Still, he lovingly pushes her bangs off of her sweaty forehead and presses a kiss to the top of her head. Toph winces, and he whispers, “Besides you don’t get to make that choice for me.”  
  
Toph’s eyes are still closed. Her voice is firm and measured. “No, but I get to make choices for myself. And I couldn’t live or rest peacefully knowing I hurt you.”  
  
Sokka has the desire to say something smart, something sarcastic. _I guess you’ll just have to haunt me_ or _I know you. You won’t rest peacefully regardless. You’ll raise hell even as a spirit._ _  
_ _  
_ But the words die in his throat. Instead, he holds her closer and tries to avoid looking at the moonlight that illuminates her face. 

\- 

  
  


Aang and Sokka sit on the edge of the water on the Air Temple Island with their toes in the water. In the distance, they could hear the yelps and cries of Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin as they played and chased one another further down the beach. The sound of lapping waves and rustling trees could also be heard in the silence in between joyful, and sometimes angry, shouts. 

Aang carefully passes Sokka a cup brimming with tea. Sokka’s nose wrinkles at the smell of the intensely medicinal herbs, but he takes a sip anyway to be polite. The tea burns on the way down his throat, but it settles warmly. His muscles relax a little at the contrast between the warmness in his stomach and the chill of the water. Sokka doesn’t want to say it, but it reminds him of being a teenager. He could imagine almost this exact scenario twenty years earlier. 

“It feels good to get away from the inside of those damn walls,” Aang takes a big gulp of his tea and leans back, letting the sun hit his face. “If I never saw the inside of the Council Room again, it would be too soon.”

“Hey,” Sokka playfully punches his friend’s arm, “we can’t all be the Avatar. Some of us have to be grateful that we were _elected_ to be in that room.” 

“Oh shut it, you know you were the only choice for Southern Water Tribe representative just like you’re going to be the only choice for Chief one day.” Aang’s voice drops an octave. “You’re going to have a lot on your plate.”  
  


Sokka smiles in spite of himself. “I know, I know. I live an incomparable life. Single handedly saving the world that one time, single handedly leading the free world now, breaking hearts as I go along. It's a tough act to follow. Try not to compare yourself, Aang.”  
  
Detecting the sarcasm in his friend’s voice, Aang breaks out into a large smile himself and offers a small chuckle. Gently and almost absentmindedly, Aang bent a small wave, pulling and pushing between the bay and the shoreline. “If only we were all so humble.” 

“It’s a gift.”

They sit in silence for a while, Sokka wasn’t sure how long exactly. But he supposes this was the point of having old friends and family, to be together and not to have to say anything at all. Sokka digs his feet into the sand further and relishes the feeling of the coolness between his toes.  
  
“Sokka,” Aang approaches the subject softly, “what’s wrong?”  
  
Sokka closes his eyes, but he’s not taken aback. They’ve known each other long enough, for more years than Sokka cares to count. He knows Aang, Katara, Zuko, and Toph better than he knows the back of his own hand. He knows the meaning of every raised eyebrow, every sagging shoulder, every sigh, and in turn, they know him - better than he knows himself sometimes.  
  
“Aang, do you believe that people could stay with us after they’re gone?”

Aang’s laugh is airy and breezy, the laugh of someone who was certain and confident in his beliefs. “I thought you didn’t believe in all of this spiritual stuff.”  
  
Sokka narrows his eyes as he looks towards the horizon. In the distance, he can see the bustle of the docks in Republic City. Ships are coming and going, and he’s sure he can see the city growing, evolving as they speak. Nothing has stayed the same. Sokka doesn’t long for the war, but he does long for the consistency he used to know. 

“I didn’t say I did. I just wanted to know what you thought.”  
  
Aang leaned back further into the sand, until he was fully laying down on the beach. His eyes closed as the sun illuminated the piercing blue of his tattoos and the fine lines on his forehead that weren’t there a few months ago. In the distance, Bumi’s roar of laughter reverberates off the rocks as Tenzin lets out a piercing shriek. If Aang was worried about his children, he didn’t say anything. 

“Of course, I believe there is something beyond this life.” Aang lets out a steady stream of breath. “And not because I am the Avatar. I feel a connection to more than just the other Avatars. When I sit here or when I’m riding Appa by myself, I can feel Monk Gyatso or my friends with me. When I walk around this island, I feel my people with me. I know they’re watching over me, still protecting me.” 

Tears burn Sokka’s eyes more than he expected. He blinks them away aggressively. 

“Thank you,” Sokka whispers, and soon enough, Aang’s steady hand rests on his back. Against his will, a tear rolls down Sokka’s dry cheek. 

-

“Uncle Sokka, if my mom sent you, you can just go home.” A dark cloud hangs over Suyin’s face even in the piercing daylight of midmorning. She’s pulled her hair back into a small ponytail, but a few locks frame her face - refusing to be pulled back into place. With this hairstyle, she looks younger than the last time he saw her, younger than she did in the mug shot Toph had shown him. Her hairstyle also brings out the angularity of her face, the tone of her skin, the few features they shared.  
  
“Nope, she didn’t send me. I volunteered.” Sokka kicks at a rusty nail popping out of the dock. “I just happened to be on my way back to the Southern Water Tribe, and I figured if I was on the same ferry, I would walk you to your grandparents.”  
  
It wasn’t a lie, not really. He and his attache were returning back home to the Southern Water Tribe. Unlike him though, the rest of his staff was on their way on a chartered tribe ship. But he had insisted that he would take the commercial line. When they protested, he held up his hand and just explained it was a favor to an old friend. The tribal elders might pry into his personal life, but the staff he worked with knew better than that. 

Toph didn’t actually ask, either. Sokka just took it upon himself to order the ticket and follow her on board from an inconspicuous distance. He kept away from most of the trip, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have anything to do. He had plenty of letters to read, reports to mark up, architecture to review, and trade deals to approve. Becoming the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe was harder than he imagined when he was a teenager. But the world had also changed a great deal since when he was a teenager. He had changed a great deal since he was a teenager - in some ways for the best and in some ways, worst.   
  
“Why didn’t you just take an airship? It would have been way faster and more direct.” The tone of her voice was a sing-songy and know-it-all. He could have just as easily pictured the same words coming out of Toph’s or Katara’s mouth.  
  
“Nice try, kid, but you’re deflecting. But if you must know, I had a bad experience. Almost died on one, almost dropped your mom to her certain death. I don’t think I want to repeat it.”  
  
Suyin rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest. Her huge bag, packed for months away, teetered on her back. “You’re being absurd. They’re perfectly safe.”  
  
“Hey, no one I know got to be this old by being rational. I learned along the way that sometimes you have to go with your gut. And my gut is telling me that, in the absence of a good air bison, I should just stick to the water like my ancestors.” All around them, people hurried off to their destinations. A few people launch themselves into the waiting arms of parents, partners, and friends. There were smiles and a few happy tears. Sokka tries to suppress the jealousy that seemed to claw at his chest. 

She cocks an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like the Uncle Sokka I know. I thought you cared about logic and reason.”

Sokka rolls his eyes back at her. “My sister can move water with magic. One of my best friends has been reincarnated. My first girlfriend literally became the moon. Logic and reason don’t always cut it.”  
  
Suyin shrugs her shoulders to push her bag more firmly on her back. She shuffles her feet, but there’s a rebellious glint that shines in her eye. “Are you coming with me to my grandparents, or are you concerned I’ll find myself in the seedy underbelly of this dead-end village?”  
  
“I’ll walk you to the gates. Considering I was part of the band of wild teenagers your mom ran away from home to join, I’m not sure if I’d be a welcome guest at your family’s.”  
  
“Mom ran away?” Suyin looks genuinely surprised at the revelation.  
  
“She never told you?” Sokka matches her look of surprise with one of his own.  
  
“My mom never tells me anything.” The dark look flashes over her face again. Sokka reaches out a hand and puts it over her shoulder. It’s painstakingly small and delicate under his calloused palm.  
  
“Your mom became a famous bending warrior, ran away from home, got trapped in a box, invented metalbending. It’s a riveting story, honestly. You should ask her about it the next time you see her.” Sokka tries to bring some lightness to the situation, keeps his voice high.  
  
“I never want to see her again.” There is a rage in her face that he has never seen before. It hurts him in a way that he didn’t expect.  
  
“Suyin, look at me.” Her eyes are glazed over with welling tears. He makes sure that their eyes meet. He squeezes her shoulder softly, careful not to hurt her. “You know that’s not true.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“You know, Su.” He’s blinking back tears of his own now. “I would give anything to see my mother again. Don’t close the door while you still have the chance.”

  
She swats his hand off of her shoulder as the anger inside her boils up. “Don’t lecture me, _Sokka_. You’re not my father.”

  
He can feel his heart-shattering in his chest. It’s a pain that he doesn’t expect, sharp and burning and as real as if someone had stabbed him in his chest with a knife. He takes a few measured breaths and sets his face, trying hard to keep the emotion from showing so plainly.  
  
“No,” he takes a deep breath and opens and closes his fist. He carefully flexes each of his fingers and relishes the stretch in his palm. “But I’ve been there for you and your sister, and that should count for something.”  
  
Suyin deflates. All the anger that she held so tightly in a ball seems to ooze out of her. Now she is left with her head hung low, her shoulders sagging, and her arms wrapped around her body. 

“Well, at least your mom probably cared about you. It’s clear from the fact that my own mother sent me away that she does not care about me.” Her voice is barely louder than a whisper, and it shakes. 

Sokka’s heart hurts, even more, to watch her in pain. His chest burns even more as he watches the tears stream down her face and fall onto her shirt. He slowly reaches out and grasps both of her arms and pulls her closer. Reluctantly, Suyin wraps her arms around him and squeezes.  
  
“You know that’s not true either. You and Lin are your mother’s entire life. She loves you more than anything in this world.” He drops a kiss on the top of her head. She smells like generic soap and a metallic tang. It’s been years since he’s done this, and he wonders how long it will be until he can again.  
  
“She has a warped way of showing it if that’s even true.” She mumbles against his chest.  
  
Sokka very careful makes space between the two of them. He wipes a tear from her cheek, and her skin is soft underneath his calloused thumb. She squeezes her eyes closed.  
  
“Listen to me very carefully,” he exhales. “Toph is just doing her best. Her own parents were so restrictive. They didn’t see a person when they looked at her. They saw a wounded songbird who they never thought would be able to fly. So they never gave her the opportunity, they never gave her choice. She never wanted to take that opportunity away from you and Lin. She wanted you to be able to chart your own path.”

Sokka doesn’t know if any of them are good parents. It’s not like they really had any role models. Everyone who was supposed to teach them how to do this was dead, estranged, or in the middle of fighting an all-consuming and never-ending war. But he did know that Toph would do anything for those girls, including laying down her own life.  
  
Suyin rubbed her eyes aggressively, wiping away her remaining tears. “She took away my choice by sending me here.”

Despite himself, Sokka busts out a broad smile. He squeezes her shoulders and pats them. “Well, if your choice is to spend the next few months inside of a jail cell, as a Council Member, I think I could have that arranged. If that’s really what you want.”  
  
“No,” Suyin sounds defeated. “Of course that’s not what I want.”  
  
“Then let’s get you moving.”

The two of them walk closely together, their steps falling in tandem. They push past the crowds and make their way quickly to the end of the dock.  
  
“I’m going to miss you, Uncle Sokka.” Suyin sounds tired as she shrugs her bag again. It’s almost comical to see such a small girl carry such a large bag. He thinks about offering to carry it for her, but he knows she’s capable of doing it for herself.  
  
“Gonna miss you more than you know, kid. Don’t forget to write. Maybe we can even arrange a visit to the South Pole. You know, if you ever need a change of scenery. And if your mom and grandparents approve, of course.”  
  
Suyin laughs softly. “Good luck convincing them.”  
  
“I have my ways.” Sokka winks. 

-

It’s been a long time since he’s been in Toph’s apartment. His father’s death, his own installation as Chief, trying to reacquaint himself with his home that seemed to change so much since he had been a boy.  
  


He looms over Lin and Suyin’s bed. The two of them are curled up next to each other, hand in hand and with black curls tangled together in a complicated looking mess. Sokka touches both of their cheeks. He relishes their childhood chubbiness, their warmth under his hand. He drops a kiss onto each sleeping girl’s forehead. 

He has missed them - all of his family - so much that it was a physical ache. He didn’t know how much he was hurting until he stood before them.  
  
“It’s good to see you, Chief.” Toph tentatively welcomes him into an embrace. It had been over a year since the two of them had seen one another. The heaviness of what they said and left unsaid the last time they spoke is in the atmosphere. Sokka squeezes and doesn’t want to let go.  
  
“It’s good to see you too, Chief.” He buries himself into the top of her head. “It’s so good to see you.”  
  
The two of them settle in Toph’s living room. It’s filthy, but Sokka doesn’t say anything. Toph already has enough on her plate, and if she can’t see it, he doubts that she cares what it looks like. She hands him a glass of firewhiskey, and Sokka relishes the burn on its way down. He sinks lower into her couch. It looks destitute, but it’s soft and plush. Clearly high quality and made to be relished. He can see where Toph puts her money.  
  
“Does she ask about me? Does she ask who her father is?”  
  
There’s a pregnant pause in the room, and Toph frowns. 

“Yes,” she starts as she begins to cross the room to the cabinet where she keeps her alcohol, “but I am never going to tell her. I can’t. I can’t give her a father and not give one to Lin. And I still can’t do this to our careers. You know that it would be over if the press found out or if the news made its way south.”  
  
Sokka drains the rest of his firewhiskey in a single gulp. He squares shoulders and squints. His cheeks are flushed. “You don’t get to keep that from them. You don’t get to keep her family from her, from her culture. And you know that I love Lin like she was my own. I always have, and I have always been here.”

“I can because I am their mother.” Toph steels herself against his harsh words. Her frown evolved into a full-on grimace. “And if you love me, you’ll trust my judgment. And if you love them, you won’t blow up their lives.”

Toph and Sokka are pragmatists, realists. And against every fiber of his being, he knows that she's right. There is no guarantee that telling Suyin or the world would make everything okay. It was no guarantee that it would lead to a fairytale ending. There was so much at stake, and there was so much to lose. 

Sokka’s face contorts in anger. He collapses into the couch, and a cloud of dust swirls around him. He can see the particles dancing in the moonlight. “That’s not fair, and you know it.”  
  
Toph shrugs as she refills her own glass. “I never claimed that I fought fair, Snoozles. You should know that by now.”

-

“Uncle Sokka,” Tenzin’s voice is uncharacteristically airy for the morning after his own father’s funeral. “Can I ask you a question?”

The two of them stand in the entryway of Aang and Katara's - well mostly just Katara's home. Sokka had barely made it through the funeral last night without completing fall apart. He had planned to take a walk alone, to steel himself, to mourn by himself, to prepare himself to be the best possible chance to be a rock to his sister and her children.   
  
Tenzin sneaks upon him, his movements quiet as spider-rat. His eyes are red and his body moves slowly. Sokka can barely look at him. In his face, he can only see Aang's face staring back at him.   
  
There is a sluggishness that permeates his body, but Sokka does his best to muster up a smile. He was in pain. Aang was his friend, his family member. And his loss was indescribable, but he had a family to take care of.  
  
“It’s something I always wanted to ask my dad, but I never got the chance.”

“If you’re going to ask me about sex,” Sokka offers him a tight and watery smile, “can we please table it for a month or two and you can just try your very best not to get anyone pregnant in the meantime?”  
  
“Uncle Sokka!” Tenzin burns bright red from the top of his bald head to the tips of his toes.  
  
Sokka lets out a nervous laugh and clasps his nephew’s shoulder. He still can barely look at him in the eyes. “I’m sorry, that was mean. What’s your question, kid?”  
  
As a twenty-something, Tenzin was hardly a child, but Sokka was never going to think of him other than Katara and Aang’s baby boy. Even if Aang was no longer with them, Tenzin was always going to be his little boy.  
  
“Did saving the world change you, do you think?”  
  
Sokka exhales. “Of course, it did. We grew up a lot faster than other people, even faster than the other kids who lived through the war. And everyone thought of us as these superhumans, these heroes. And in some ways, we were. Your father absolutely was a hero. But we are normal people, too. Normal people who are just trying to navigate what it means to be a good parent, a good leader, and a good person in the world. And sometimes, we make a few mistakes, even when it’s hard to admit it.”  
  
Tenzin’s shoulders sag with visible relief and grief. Sokka reaches out and hugs his nephew close. 

  
“Thank you,” Tenzin whispers, “I feel like I understand a lot more now.”  
  
Sokka can only wish for the same understanding from his family when he passes.

**Author's Note:**

> dark!nick, give us the tokka content we need. 
> 
> and damn, aunt wu really said that sokka's future was going to be filled with full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted, and i really did that to him.
> 
> also a linear story? i’m sorry to say this, and i hope i don’t sound ridiculous, but i don’t know who that man is.


End file.
